CM with no dialysis experience?

Our current CM is leaving once her CRNP license is approved, so they have been trying to hire a CM for a while now.  Not many options to go with.  They are now considering hiring a nurse from out of state with lots of management experience but no dialysis experience.  The other RN at the clinic and I have concerns.  We need a strong manager that can handle difficult staff, and generally, we can handle most day-to-day issues, so having someone without lots of dialysis knowledge may be OK.  However, that means we have no coverage for vacations/call-offs for a good 6 months to a year.  All the clinics in our area are short-staffed, so no float nurses are available.  And it just seems like a huge learning curve to come into a specialty like this with no idea how a clinic functions. 

In light of this, I am trying to put together a list of questions to discuss with the current leadership.  

Does anyone have any experience with working under a CM without dialysis experience?  Any other questions or concerns I should be raising?

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I will say that Davita uses a business approach to hiring for management positions - so this often results in the dietician or social worker being the manager, 

I would take a nurse without any dialysis experience over a non-clinical person. 

At my davita unit, there is one RN and two techs for 30 pts. Yep, the RN works 6 days/week open to close and that's been going on for a year!

A the FMC units where I round, staffing remains abysmal as well: 1 RN full time and the DO helps out as well. 

The nursing shortage is real

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

There's a real advantage to hiring a manager that isn't a nurse at all.  Our district has shed managers at an alarming rate this past year, we are down  to two clinics out of 7 having a CM.  Heck I haven't had a CM in about a year in my clinic. The primary reason is simply burnout. So many open shifts, both nurses and PCT's that  managers were covering that they just can't get their work done without putting in massive amounts of work from home or working late hours...all on salary rather than hourly pay.   

If the manager isn't a nurse and therefor isn't qualified to cover those nursing shifts they can actually focus on their own job. Though apparently the answer to that dilemma is hiring a non nursing manager and training that person in as a PCT.  So the oncoming clinic administrator will be responsible for covering any PCT shifts in our clinic that can't get filled but not the nursing shifts.  The new administrator is still in the PCT portion of the training so it's an unknown at this point how well this solution will work. As far as I know that responsibility for covering PCT shifts only applies to our clinic, but who knows if that will change if there's a desperate  PCT need in another clinic. 

[Duncan6]

Thanks for your feedback!  It sounds like we aren't in too bad of shape considering what everyone else is dealing with!